You are very welcome to have a Mac, and we are happy to support it. But if you are asking whether your practice should buy one, Mac or PC, our answer is a PC, and you will struggle to find an IT company that says otherwise. I have employed many dozens of IT people over the years, and the ones who really know their stuff tend not to rate Macs for business use. I know exactly why.
I am loath to wade into controversy, because people love their Macs. But it is worth explaining why most helpdesk engineers, IT consultants and IT managers (and, to a far lesser extent, software developers) are not fans. When someone rings our helpdesk and mentions they are on a Mac, there is probably a sigh. Entirely inaudible, of course. It is not prejudice. From an IT point of view there are good, practical reasons, so let me go through them.
Mac or PC: compatibility comes first
Most people buy a computer to run apps. Plenty of software is now cloud based and does not care what you run it on, which is great. The problem is everything around the edges.
Take a dental practice. You can almost certainly run Dentally in a browser on a Mac. But the bridge that links it to your x-ray software, the imaging software itself, the scanner driver, the signature pad or the card terminal integration: those are very often Windows only. The core app works; the practice around it does not, and digital imaging is usually where it bites first.
Then there is the software lifecycle. Apple is much bolder, and frankly less kind, about leaving older software behind. In 2019 macOS Catalina dropped support for 32-bit apps in one go, and macOS 26 was the last version for Intel-based Macs, some of which Apple was still selling in 2023. From time to time I come across licences for Mac apps only a few years old that simply will not install on the latest version.
Windows is the opposite. Almost every piece of software ever written for it runs, or can be made to run, on any PC of any generation. We take that for granted, but it is remarkable. I still play Unreal Tournament from time to time. It came out in 1999, and it runs great on my 2026 Windows machine, 27 years later. A Mac cannot touch that.
You pay more for less
Macs are not cheap, and spec for spec you get far more for your money from an equivalent Lenovo, HP or Dell, sometimes markedly so.
The sting is in the upgrades. Apple charges a lot to step up memory or storage, and because both are built into the machine, you cannot add more later. Apple's cheapest laptop, the MacBook Neo, comes with 8GB of memory that can never be upgraded and 256GB of storage, which does not go far once the operating system, your apps and a few years of email and documents are on it. A Mac runs well when it has enough memory; you just pay handsomely for it. With hardware prices as high as they are right now, that gap matters more than ever.
Features PC laptops have had for years
Apple's iPhones are state of the art, every September without fail. The Mac, oddly, is not.
Touchscreens and pens
At the time of writing, Apple has never sold a touchscreen Mac. One is rumoured, but Windows laptops have had touchscreens for well over a decade, along with models that fold round into a tablet and take a pen. On a Mac, none of that is on the table.
A SIM card slot
I have had three generations of Lenovo's X1 Yoga, a fabulous machine, and every one has had a £15 a month SIM in it. I open the laptop anywhere in the UK and I am online, whatever the Wi-Fi is doing, and abroad an eSIM does the same. No Mac has ever had built-in mobile data, a decade after PC laptops made it an everyday option. (Mobile data makes a great safety net for the practice too: see 4G and 5G backup.)
Ordinary ports
Want to plug your laptop into a TV or a meeting room screen with an HDMI lead, like you can on almost every PC laptop ever made? On a MacBook Air or MacBook Neo you cannot, not without an adaptor. To be fair, Apple did put HDMI back on the larger MacBook Pro in 2021, after five years of dongles.
Managing a Mac in a business
Having a Mac for yourself is one thing. Having your IT company manage, maintain and support it is another.
It can be done properly, with Apple Business Manager and a device management platform, but it is a second set of tools alongside everything else, and in our experience harder and less mature than managing Windows. Even simple remote support has an extra hurdle: macOS will not let support software see or control the screen until someone grants permission by hand, at the Mac itself, and it can ask again from time to time. So a helpdesk call about something simple often starts with us talking you through System Settings.
Then there are backups. Windows actively nudges you to sync your Desktop and Documents folders to OneDrive. Many Mac users I have worked with have a desktop piled high with apps and documents, not synced to any cloud service and not backed up. Not strictly the Mac's fault, but a real risk. If you are not sure where your files actually live, get your backups checked.
"But it just works"
Well, so does Windows. And you do not have to hunt around to find where your apps and documents have gone.
This is not a lack of familiarity, either. Underneath, macOS is Unix, and I have worked with Linux and Sun Microsystems' version of Unix in previous jobs, so I can get right down into a Mac and use it properly. That still does not make me a fan.
Yes, Macs look lovely. But plenty of modern PC laptops look every bit as good these days.
I am not an Apple hater
I love my iPhone and I am about to order the 18 Pro Max. The phones are always excellent, even if the much trumpeted AI features have been underwhelming so far. It is the laptops and desktops I am less sure about. I am happy to leave those to the designers who love them, even though I have very little idea why.
So, Mac or PC for your practice?
If you already have a Mac, that is absolutely fine. We will support it, and we know it well. But for reception, surgery and back-office machines we will recommend Windows PCs every time: they run everything a practice needs, cost less for the same spec, and are easier for us to keep secure, backed up and running. If you are about to buy new kit, talk to us first.
And if you think I am wrong, that is great. Get in touch and tell me. I would genuinely like to hear the case.